The year is 1958, his last in college. He
has experienced both the elements they say are important,
the internal call and the external confirmation. The call
is the sweet love of God welling up within him in choir and
during his walks through the college arboretum. The confirmation
is Sarah.

"I don't always believe in God,"
she confessed in a whisper on the other side of their strawberry
shake. Strawberry cream balanced on her quivering lip.

"That's normal." He put his hand
on hers, glad to have an excuse, this their first date. Her
hand was hot and he slid his thumb underneath it and into
her palm.

"Do you know when I believe in him
most?"

"When?"

"When I hear you sing."

In the fall he marries her and goes to seminary.
In ten years he will crouch on some smoking plain near Danang
and help a boy hold his guts in. He will lean over the boy's
face so they can hear, and give last rites even though he
is not Catholic, because there will be no other chaplains
in that dying field but him, sent by God and Sarah. He will
listen while the boy cries out and then he will answer. He
will think at that moment that his words are theopneustosGod-breathedto
some people, whether they are drinking pink milkshake or watching
trails of scarlet run over their hands and down their arms
to gum up the dirt.